How to Navigate the Dashboard in WordPress
Hi! Welcome to BuildMySiteForFree.com. Today, I’m going to be showing you how to navigate your dashboard. Now, the dashboard is where you navigate everything on your blog and where you control everything on your blog.
So, here we’re on the main screen, and if you go here to the left hand side of our window browser, we have our navigation menu. Now, each of these I’m going to explain further in future videos, but today I’m just going to give you a brief explanation of what they are and what they do.
The first thing I will mention is that each of them have an arrow next to them, so when you click that arrow, a submenu will open where you have more options. If you start right here at the top, you have updates. Whenever an update is available for our version of WordPress, a little circle with a number will appear right here. If you click that, you’re able to update your version.
Next on our navigation menu, we have posts. When we open up that submenu, we have the option to view and edit our current posts, add new posts, and add, view, and edit categories as well as tags.
Next, we have media. When you open up this, our media library comes first, and this will enable us to view all of our media files that we have uploaded as well as search and manage the media files that we have. We have the option to add new media files as well.
Next we have links. Links will show all the current links we have on our blog and an option to add new links as well as link categories. Next we have pages where we can view our current page as well as add a new one. Now the difference between a page and a post is that a page stays in one place, and it shows up in our site navigation. It basically gives your viewers an introduction of who you are and what you and your blog is all about rather than a post which is just about a specific subject.
Next we have comments. Now comments is the only part of our navigation menu that doesn’t have a submenu, so when you click this it will bring us to a page which allows you to view your comments, approve them, mark them as spam or pending, which I will talk about in further videos as well.
Next on our navigation menu we have appearance, and this is basically what your blog looks like. Themes, widgets, menus, background, header, editor. If you click any of these, it will bring you to a page which allows you to format the appearance of your blog.
Next we have plugins, and here we can add new plugins, activate and deactivate plugins, as well as type in keywords where we can search for other keywords for our blog.
Next we have users where we can view the current users that we have on our blog. We can add new users or update information on our profile.
Lastly on our navigation menu, we have tools and settings. When you click either of these, it just gives you different options that you can set for your blog. Those are also going to be talked about in future videos.
Now, we are on our main screen of the dashboard. Here we have our right now section which is basically everything that is going on right now in our blog. First we have on this left hand side the number of posts, pages, categories, and tags that we have, and if you click any of those, it brings us to the pages where we can view those posts or edit them, view those pages and edit them, and further.
Next we have comments, and here it will show you how many comments we have, how many have been approved, how many are pending for our approval, and how many are spam. By clicking any of those, it will bring us to that comment management page that I just spoke about. It also shows us what theme and what version of WordPress we are using, with an option to change our theme. If you have another version available, you can also update it by clicking the update button right here.
Next we have QuickPress. This is just a quick and simple way to create a post. You have your title box, your post box, the option to insert any media files, as well as save your draft and publish. So, if you have something quick that you just want to write, you can go right here and publish it.
Underneath we have recent comments and recent drafts, so if you have a recent comment that has been left for you on your blog or if you have a draft that’s waiting to be published, both of those will be waiting right here.
If you go further down, WordPress has a blog and news that they like to update all of their users, so you just go here for any new information about WordPress.
Before I end this video, you also – I just want to point out right here under screen options, you can show what you want on your dashboard screen as well as the layout of it. And then here under help, if you are confused about what anything on your dashboard is, you can come here and it will explain it to you what it is as well as give you more help in each of those categories.
That is how you navigate your dashboard. Thanks for watching, and please stay tuned for more videos.
About the Author
Andy Johnson has been on the Internet since the its dawn(ie his first computer program was recorded on cassette tape) and his first hard drive cost about as much his current MacBook. His first byline was in 1993 for a local newspaper rag he eventually helmed, and his last “real job” was at a computer start up which ended when it ended. Throughout it all he’s freelanced and blogged. Now he is mesmerized by Search Engine Optimization forever trying to “rise to the top” for the right reasons. He’s been married to his wife Julia for as long as he can remember and has two lovely, wonderful children. He looks forward to sharing the latest in the technical best for all the online entrepreneurs.